“Why my father? Why would—?”

And then he had a chilling thought. What had she said to him that first day in the hospital room?

Trust me, hon, there’s more to your father than you ever dreamed.

“Oh, no! You’re not telling me that this ‘predecessor champion’ you’ve been telling me about is my father!”

“Tom?” Anya laughed. “Oy! Such a thought! You think you’re living in a fairy tale? How can you even consider such a thing!”

“That’s not a exactly a ‘no.’”

“All right then. You want a ‘no’? Here’s a ‘no.’ Your father hasno direct connection to the Ally or the Otherness. Never did, never will.”

She laughed again and continued her card play.

Jack too had to smile. All right, yeah, it was a ridiculous thought. The pen might be mightier than the sword, but an accountant as defender of humanity against the Otherness? Crazy.

Yet…for a moment there…

“Wait. You said no direct connection. Does he have anindirect connection?”

“Of course. Isn’t it obvious?”

“Because he’s my father?”

Anya nodded. “A blood relative.”

Jack closed his eyes. This was what he’d suspected, what he’d feared.

“That alligator, then…it was sent by the Otherness.”

“Sent? No, that was someone else’s idea. I can tell you that the creature was created by the Otherness, but whether intentionally or accidentally is hard to say.”

“Why? You seem to know everything else. Why don’t you know that?”

“I don’t know everything, kiddo. If I did, maybe the two of us could send the Otherness and the Ally packing.”

“Why do I get this feeling you’re holding back? You don’t know everything? Fine. Nobody does. But why don’t you just come out and tell everything youdo know?”

“Because sometimes it’s best that you learn things on your own. But I can tell you about the connection between the Otherness and that alligator.”

Jack leaned back and took another slug of wine. “I’m all ears.”

“It was born near a nexus point.”

“And that is…?”

“A place. A very special place. In various locales around the globe there are spots where the veil between our world and the Otherness is thin. Occasionally the veil attenuates to the point where a little of the Otherness can enter our sphere. But only briefly. Rarely do beings from the other side pass through. But influence…ah, that’s another matter.”

“Let me guess a location,” Jack said. “Washington, DC, maybe? Say, near the Capitol Hill or the White House?”

Anya smiled as she gathered up her cards. She’d won again.

“I’m afraid thosegonifs have no such excuses for their behavior, hon. But one is near here, and another near where you live.”

“Where?” Somehow Jack wasn’t surprised.

“In the New Jersey Pine Barrens. At a place called Razorback Hill.”

Jack had gone into the Barrens last spring, and almost hadn’t come out. “It must be pretty well hidden. I mean, don’t you think someone would have stumbled across it by now?”

“There are places in the Pine Barrens that no human eyes have seen. But even so, the nexus points manifest themselves directly only twice a year—at the equinoxes. But their indirect effects can be viewed every day.”

“Like what?”

“Mutations. Something leaks through from the other side around the time of the equinox; whatever it is changes the cells of the living things around it—plants, animals, trees…and people.”

“You’d think someone would have noticedthat by now.”

Anya shook her head. “The nexus points are located in unpopulated areas.”

“How convenient.”

“Not so. When you consider that these leaks have been occurring for ages, and that most people experience a sense of uneasiness when they near a nexus point, it makes sense. Nexus points don’t occur in places that people avoid. Just the opposite: People—most people, that is—instinctively avoid nexus points.”

Jack was thinking,nexus point…mutations…a humongous horned alligator…

“There’s a nexus point out there in the swamp, isn’t there.”

“I told you, it’s not a swamp, it’s—”

“A river of grass. Right. Okay. But am I right that there’s a nexus point nearby in the Everglades?”

Anya nodded. “In a lagoon within one of the hardwood hummocks.”

“How do you know all this?”

Anya shrugged. “Like I said before, hon, I’ve been around here longer than you.”

“How long?”

“Long enough.”

“All right, then.” He sensed a certain timelessness about Anya, and was convinced she was more than she pretended to be. He took a chance and asked her flat out: “How long have you and these other women been around?”

“I should tell you my age?”

She lit another cigarette and gathered up her cards. She’d won another game. That made three in a row. More than luck there. Had to be. She was either cheating or…

Let it go.

“All right, don’t tell me. Maybe if I see that Indian woman again”—he remembered her orange sari and long braid, and her German shepherd—“maybe I’ll ask her. She looked young.”

Anya laughed.“Never ask a woman her age!”

Thinking of the other women with dogs reminded Jack of something one of them had said.

“The Russian woman mentioned someone called the Adversary. Who’s that? She said I’d met him.”

Anya leaned back and stared at him.

“You have. Remember my telling you about the aging one who once spearheaded the Ally’s cause? Well, the Otherness has its own champion. He’s very dangerous. He’s ancient. He’s been killed more than once but each time he’s been reborn.”

“And I’ve met him? I—”

And then Jack knew. The strange, strange man who’d first explained the Otherness to him, the man he suspected of being ultimately responsible for Kate’s death…

“Roma,” he whispered. “Sal Roma. At least that was what he told me his name was. I later learned that was a lie.”

“Always you must expect lies where he is concerned—unless the truth will hurt you. He feeds on pain.”

“Yeah. That was what your Russian friend told me: human misery, discord, and chaos. But who is he, really?”

“More likewhat is he. He used to be a man just like you, but now he is more. He is destined to become something else, but he hasn’t reached that state yet. He can do things that humans can only dream of, but he is still in the process of becoming. He’s known as ‘the Adversary’ to those who oppose the Otherness, and ‘the One’ to those aligned with it.”

“Why would people work for the Otherness when they know it means the end of everything?”

Anya shrugged. “Who can explain people? Some are so filled with hate that they want to see everything destroyed, some believe their efforts toward bringing the Otherness apocalypse will be rewarded afterward, some believe packages of lies they’ve been fed, and some are simply mad. The Adversary orchestrates their movements from afar.”

“But what’s hisname ?”

“He uses many. He has many identities, many different looks, but he never uses his True Name.”

“Do you know it?”

Anya nodded. “But I will not tell you.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because he would hear you. And you do not want to attract his attention.”

“Says who?” Jack said, feeling the heat of the rage he’d been carrying around for months now. “I’ve got a score to settle with him and—”

“No!” Anya was leaning forward in her seat, eyes ablaze. “You stay away from him! Whatever you do, you must not antagonize him. He will snuff you out like a match if it suits him.”

“We’ll see about that. Just tell me his name and let me worry about the rest.”

Anya shook her head. “Speaking his name would lead him here—and he’s looking for me.”

“You? Why?”

“To kill me.”

Her words shocked Jack. And the matter-of-fact way she said it, as if she’d been dealing with this threat for so long she’d grown used to it, made it all the more believable.

But could it be true? If so, he’d lay off pressing her for Roma’s real name.